The next few weeks I’ll be out of my comfort zone as extensive renovations at Nuuanu Congregational Church will move the worship services to the church gymnasium until perhaps the first week in June. That means I’ll be playing a digital piano instead of organ for the service — DEFINITELY out of my comfort zone.

Although I took piano lessons from the age of four to thirteen, it doesn’t mean I have any mastery of the piano in any way. I can say with all honesty that I don’t play a single piece of piano literature! Oh, sure, I can read through some moderately easy piano pieces, but anything more than “intermediate” begins to stretch me into a Nervous Nellie! My mother was my first teacher and I was in first grade when I started lessons with Mrs. Mae Driver, who was the organist and pianist at a nearby Presbyterian church. You may have read somewhere on this blog that I never practiced (TRUE!) and I sightread all of my lessons. Mrs. Driver never seemed to notice!

By the time I was in eighth grade (and my two sisters were in sixth and third grades respectively), we collectively went to our parents and announced we were quitting the piano. Instead of quitting, my mother suggested that we all switch to another instrument. My sisters switched to violin and I went to the organ, not having ever heard a pipe organ before. I started organ lessons with Norman Söreng Wright at the Hollywood First Methodist Church and never looked back.

When I married Carl Crosier in 1977, I never had to worry about playing the piano in case the music called for it … because he ALWAYS played the piano, and I was happy to sit back and listen. The same went for playing the harpsichord — there was never a question of who would play if we needed to have a harpsichordist — he always did it.

I went back to look at my post, “Washed up pianist,” where I wrote: I must admit that since my husband Carl died, I don’t feel as intimidated playing the piano since he’s not around. You see, since he had a college degree in piano performance, I could never measure up.

The same goes for playing the harpsichord. When Jieun Kim Newland was in Honolulu, I always deferred to her playing, but now that she’s moved to Texas, it means the harpsichord parts fall to me.

When I see the music I’ll have to play on the piano this week, I’m feeling MOST anxious about it! I found a wonderful collection of Easter arrangements by Thomas Keesecker, a Lutheran colleague whom I’ve met at Association of Lutheran Church Musicians conferences. Hey, in fact, this Sunday I’ll only be taking two books in my music bag:

Guess what, I don’t have to bring my organ shoes to church!

I was telling this whole story of my inability to play the piano to a new friend I met this morning, Edward Gattsek, a high school band director who lives in New Jersey, and is in Hawaii while his wife Jo Ann Lamolino plays trumpet with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. Ed plays the trumpet, but the reason he contacted me is that he is also an organ enthusiast and an organist! On previous trips he has played the organs at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Central Union and the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. With his wife now in a tenured position with the Hawaii Symphony, he’ll be coming to Hawaii two or three times a year. Jo Ann also plays in a number of orchestras in several states, making for an interesting challenge at tax time! (A tax return has to be filed in every state in which you earn money.) We met at Le Crepe Cafe in Manoa where I took Ed’s picture.

Wish me luck on Sunday!